Updated 4:58 pm, Monday, January 21, 2013

Lee Cearnal was city editor of The Ledger in Lakeland, Fla., when a job candidate called from the airport asking for directions to the office.

"Lee told him, 'No. Get here on your own. We're not hiring any reporter who can't find his way from the Tampa airport to Lakeland,' " said Charles Overby, Cearnal's former boss at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss.

Cearnal, who spent more than a decade at the Houston Chronicle and helped lead a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Clarion-Ledger, died Tuesday at his home in Houston. He was 68.

"He expected people to be their best. He brought out the best in reporters - in big things and in small things," Overby said.

Cearnal was a pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps, flying helicopters in combat during the Vietnam War.

A great organizer

He received a bachelor's degree in English from Florida State University and a journalism degree from the University of Florida. Cearnal then joined the ranks of the itinerant newsman - working at papers in Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana before moving to Texas.

One of his strengths was an ability to manage complex news projects - like the Clarion-Ledger's 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on education reform in Mississippi.

"He had a great capacity for organizing and maintaining a long-term look at complicated issues," said John Williams, a former reporter and political columnist at the Houston Chronicle.

Cearnal was city editor at the Clarion-Ledger and edited much of the coverage that resulted in the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize.

"He took massive amounts of copy and helped turn it into something that was understandable and interesting for the readers," Overby said.

A man for details

Cearnal came to the Chronicle in 1993 as night city editor. In 2000, he was named projects editor at the Chronicle.

Cearnal was known in the newsroom as a stickler for ensuring that even the smallest detail in an article was correct.

"He was a strong editor. Some people thought he was a little curt sometimes, but I think he was just doing his job," said Steve Jetton, Outlook editor at the Chronicle. "He was just trying to get the facts straight."

Cearnal was a strict editor even when communicating with family members. His daughter, Gretchen Cearnal Botha, said he would note errors in her emails and even the short messages sent by tapping on a cellphone keyboard.

"I would say, 'You've just got to let it go with the text messages,' " she said.

Cearnal also was an avid golfer and a doting grandfather.

Family members said he died of a heart attack. Survivors include his daughter of Pearland, her husband Mario, and two granddaughters, Ellie, 4, and Grace, 2.